“The phrase world view refers to the perspective in which people look at themselves and their surrounding world in cultural terms,” and as stated by A. Irving Hallowell in his text "The Ojibwa of Berens River , Manitoba: Ethnography into History," “we cannot impose distinctions and classifications of phenomena derived from another worldview upon them if we seek to comprehend their outlook.”(63)
The Ojibwa worldview can be complex, and I feel that unless you are immersed or have been taught about the worldview it is very easy to misunderstand it, and come to different assumptions about it. It is easy to see that Hallowell at the time of his work did not fully understand how the Ojibwa interacted with their environment. His attempt to understand the Ojibwa worldview and how it relates to story/myth and legend is a bit frustrating. I find it frustrating because though he states “distinctions and classifications of phenomena cannot be imposed on another worldview,” (63) he is quick to state that the Ojibwa worldview is one that is “limited by their reliable knowledge” (60).
Cultural worldviews tend to clash when another culture, in this case the Western world attempts to determine or analyze how a people see or interact with the world because their beliefs are different. It would not be far reaching to state that Hallowell clearly misunderstood the manner in which the Ojibwa view their world and the role that stories/myths and legends are told. This is evident when he relays that the “temporal dimension of the Ojibwa worldview is not systematically organized in any formal way,” and “once we enter the mythological world of the Ojibwa, linear chronology loses all significance.” (73)
(Based on text: The Ojibwa of Berens River, Manitoba: Ethnography into History written by A.Irving Hallowell. ISBN: 0-15-517695-1, c.2002)
Works Cited:
A. Irving Hallowell. The Ojibwa of Berens River, Manitoba: Ethnography into History.p.63-73
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